Hollywood, like the
rest of the country, has suddenly discovered the CIA, no doubt thanks
to Watergate, the Rockefeller Commission, the Church-Pike investigations,
etc. But no one to the left of Daniel Moynihan should be very pleased
with the results.

Not that the CIA,
as a concept, is any stranger to the Hollywood movie. CIA-style espionage
agencies have flourished in U.S. pictures for years, especially during
the 1960’s, when there was a substantial James Bond-influenced trend that “modernized” the oldstyle cloak and dagger thriller. The CIA,
or a facsimile, appears often today in low budget or independent films,
especially those which are aimed at a Black market. But the major studios
have been slow, in the catchphrase of the McCarthy Era, to name names.
They began to react a few years ago, with EXECUTIVE ACTION, and then THE
PARALLAX VIEW, flawed but courageous films which had in common the unstated
presence of the CIA. Yet, though both movies vacillated, they were speedily
junked by distributors and died the unseen death.

This year things
are different. Criticism of the CIA is more popular, de rigueur between
cocktails. Three major pictures about the CIA—each unhesitatingly
using the CIA as an identifiable villain—have been released by
U.S. studios, each bolstered by a top male box-office star. But they are vastly
disappointing films—evasive, exploitative and politically vacuous.
Two of them—Sam Peckinpah’s THE KILLER ELITE and Sydney Pollack’s
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR—are completely concerned with an internecine
warfare. James Caan battles renegade Robert Duvall in one film; Robert
Redford is pitted against a mysterious Mideast cabal in another. It is
as if the plots deny or diminish the thought of international consequences
from CIA actions. (Heaven forbid that Allende should be mentioned.) The
third movie, BREAKOUT, a Charles Bronson vehicle, is the most interesting
politically, even though it is the least interesting cinematically. It
occurs in Mexico and deals quite blatantly with CIA intervention in foreign
affairs, with Robert Duvall as an ambiguous“good guy” imprisoned
on trumped-up CIA charges. In this film, the entire CIA is understood
as the “enemy,” not simply a splinter cabal. And the film has
an exhilarating climax, when a CIA killer is chopped into bloody pieces
by an airplane’s propeller while he wrestles with Charles Bronson on a
runway. Of course, this sequence always seems to elicit the loudest applause.

But, of the three
movies, THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR has drawn the most critical attention
and likely, it will also accumulate the largest box office receipts. Many
liberal critics see it as a pertinent message to CIA-weary United States.
An underground newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, went so far as to include
the film in its year’s Ten Best List, as “a chillingly accurate appraisal
of CIA inter-office warfare.” But while that may be true, THREE DAYS
OF THE CONDOR falls desperately short of any real accuracy about the CIA,
being instead a wide-screen whitewash tantamount to the Rockefeller Commission.
Sure, the story has its strong aspects: a clique of power hungry agency
bureaucrats who are secretly plotting intervention in the Middle East
(not far from fantasy). A plot gimmick (the Redford character decodes
novels for the CIA) that suggests the presence of E. Howard Hunt. An occasional
specificity that brings the plot, ultimately, to a cozy hamlet named Chevy
Chase, Maryland. And an ambiguous hint at the film’s conclusion suggests
that the New York Times is under the thumb of the CIA. But the
script is so mechanical in its dialogue and details that the politics
suffer. I cite such flaws as the hokey romance between Faye Dunaway and
Robert Redford. Their maudlin love scene is especially undercut by soft-focus
shots of the “lonely” photographs on Dunaway’s apartment wall.
It’s a “meaningful” gesture worthy of an uninspired undergraduate.

More alarmingly,
the film vehemently suggests that the CIA’s “excesses” are attributable
to a small, dangerous, yet ultimately controllable clique—that
is presumably motivated by abstract power mongering rather than economic
imperatives. This is the film’s deep, unforgivable political flaw. It
renders the entire film, bright moments notwithstanding, shallow and naive.
It’s easy to discern the political intelligence at work here. Both Pollack
and Redford are well-known liberals, who probably agonized over the THREE
DAYS OF THE CONDOR script (especially the ending since the CIA was making
headlines daily). And Pollack can be a thematically provocative director,
albeit in a more existential vein. He demonstrated such promise in THEY
SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?, JEREMIAH JOHNSON and THE WAY WE WERE. The latter
film is notable for its fascinating glimpses of people who sell out their
politics in Hollywood. Similarly Pollack sells out in that film by not
dealing directly with the Hollywood blacklist (pertinent sequences from
the released film were cut). Ignoring the more complex demands of THREE
DAYS OF THE CONDOR, he is either unwilling or unable to do service to
politically explosive material because of this personal weakness. Pollack’s
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR is ultimately a souped-up contemporary spy caper
with lukewarm political impact.

I talked with Sydney
Pollack last fall on the day his picture opened in Boston. He was in a
foul mood, after having read a review in the daily newspaper. Pollack
was irked not because the reviewer didn't like THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
(as a matter of fact, he did), but because the reviewer nevertheless termed
it “shallow.” It was a movie, Pollack said angrily, that he
never intended to be profound. The following interview is offered as evidence
to people with like expectations: Pollack’s double-bind of weighty themes
and facile technique betrays the confusion of the liberal mind.

M: Did you have any
contact with the CIA while you were making THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR?

P: There wasn't,
really. We would have welcomed it, but we knew better than to try to pursue
it actively in any way. What we did was to invite Mr. (Richard) Helms
to come and watch the shooting for a day, which he did. I think he enjoyed
himself very much. It was a movie, finally, and not any attempt on our
part to do a definitive documentary.

I think that the
critics are falling into all kinds of traps with this movie. Absolutely
falling all over themselves. Half the critics are looking at it as a serious
political piece of propaganda and criticizing it on that level which,
god knows, wasn't intended. The film was three-quarters finished before
any of these CIA revelations began to happen.

We were doing a straight
thriller. That’s what we wanted to do. And we were shocked that as much
of what we imagined, if you will, was coming to pass. We were absolutely
dumbfounded. The attempt was, first of all, to make it faithful to the
genre of a thriller. And within that, to explore certain ideas of suspicion,
trust, morality, if you will; but it was not intended in any way as a
documentary, I suppose, but as a warning—using the CIA almost
as a metaphor, and drawing certain conclusions from post-Watergate America.

I didn't want this
picture to be judged; it’s a movie. I intended it always as a movie. I
never had any pretensions about the picture and it’s making me very angry
that I'm getting pretensions stuck on me like tails on a donkey., If I
wanted to be pretentious, I'd take the CIA seal and advertise this movie
and really take advantage of the headlines. Central Intelligence Agency,
United States of America, Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway. And don't think
it wasn't suggested—obviously, that’s what advertising people do. We
really put our foot down—Redford and I—to absolutely stop that.

M: I mean—did you
question whether or not you would use the CIA presence so literally in
the film?

P: Sure, we did think
twice about it. But I didn't think there was any way to duck it. The word
that comes to my mind is speculative. It was a speculative film. We were
just speculating, saying what if, what if, what if. Then we got caught
in the headlines. I think that’s interfered rather strongly with an objective
assessment of the film as a film, as a movie. From the producer’s point
of view, that’s terrific, because it makes the picture timely. From a
critical standpoint, my fear is that it has forced the movie to be judged
by standards other than it was intended to be judged by. If I were to
make the film now, I'd still make the film the way I made it. Because
I wouldn't attempt to make a serious film about the CIA without switching
entirely what I was doing. I'd give up the whole spy genre and do a documentary
about morality and government bureaucracies. That’s another kind of movie...

Nobody is bored in
this movie. There’s nothing to hate in this movie. It’s a movie, what’s
to hate? What’s to not like? JAWS it’s not, maybe, but there’s nothing
to hate in it. So what happens is that the intellectuality of critics
takes over, after the fact. That’s what I think happens. They go to the
movie, have a damn good time and then they feel guilty about it, because
it’s in the headlines. If it weren't in the headlines now, they'd come
away saying, jeez, this is a terrific spy thriller. But now they have
to say, wait a second, it’s a spy thriller, but look what it’s about...
and then a certain kind of intellectual snobbery takes over. I'm not knocking
the critics; I'm just saying that they have a conscience that hits them
afterwards.

The same thing happened
with THE WAY WE WERE. Critics went to THE WAY WE WERE and they all cried.
Then they came out and wrote about it as dribble. In between the lies
they begrudgingly said they liked it, but they felt guilty for liking
something so overtly romantic... I think if they had to write about it
immediately after, it would be terrific. They get too long a time to think.

M: But you ‘are exaggerating
the movie’s political impact—I think it is a very serious film.

P: Here’s what I
always try to do, and again it’s something I get my wrists slapped for
all the time. I want to work within genres—a western, romance,
melodrama or spy film. And then, within that form, which I try to remain
as faithful to as I can, I love to fool around with serious ideas. The
westerns that I've made have not been straight westerns, by any manner.
JEREMIAH JOHNSON was, for me, a very serious film. It was a western, but
it was still a serious film and it entertains very serious ideas about
copping out, dropping out, how far can you go? Do you have to make it
work within the system or do you try to make it work elsewhere? To me,
those are serious ideas, but still it’s a movie, basically an entertainment.

Here I tried to deal,
as much as I could, with trust and suspicion, paranoia, which I think
is happening in this country, when every institution I grew up believing
was sacrosanct is now beginning to crumble. It’s destroying, in a very
serious way, a certain kind of trust that is essential to have in a working
society. Now those are all very pretentious ideas to have. But I don't
think they have to be pretentious, if you put them in this kind of entertaining
piece. I don't think there’s anything wrong with exploring those ideas
as long as you don't get pretentious about it.

I think it’s interesting
to take Redford as a man who trusts, in the beginning of the movie, and
turn him into a guy who is practically paranoid by the end, so much so
that he distrusts his lover. And to take a girl (sic) who doesn't trust
in the beginning, and when she’s forced to be close at gunpoint and doesn't
die, she ends up trusting in an odd way. Those ideas are serious ideas,
but I don't think of it as an idea picture. I think of it basically as
a thriller, and that was what I wanted to make.

M: The ending is
very political.

P: That, to me, was
very important. I did not want to take a cheap shot at the CIA, which
is very easy to do now. I wanted to give (Cliff) Robertson a voice. Let
him say what he says there, which is, hey look, we have a job to do. We
didn't invent it. You guys paid the taxes for us to do this job... I don't
necessarily agree with that point of view but I felt I had to voice it,
in all fairness, because otherwise I think it’s just taking a cheap shot,
which is easy to do—making them a bunch of moustache-twirling villains.
God knows, they're bad enough. All you have to do is present the reality.

M: You sound as if
you have a lingering respect for the CIA.

P: What I mean is,
I don't defend the CIA’s actions. I think they're horrific. But, on the
other hand, I don't think we should abolish the CIA. What we have to do
is find some way of making a check and balance system work that, conceivably,
hasn't been working before. The CIA has grown autonomous in a way that’s
horrific. Have you read in the paper about the plates they've printed
to make their own money, billions of dollars? They've printed billions
of dollars, and the money has turned up in Mafia hands. Those actions
are horrific. So anybody who goes to see the movie and says, this is far
out, this couldn't happen, it’s not true.

M: Was the New
York Times ending thrown in because of what was happening while you
were shooting—the Watergate disclosures?

P: No, it wasn't
at all. We didn't want the CIA to end up victorious, it was as simple
as that. When a power that strong is after a single individual, where
can he (sic) go? The book has the CIA killing everybody; I didn't want
to do that. I didn't want him dead. I wanted some hope, some sense that
the audience could feel that there is a recourse; and the fact is, as
corny as it seems, that what is changing everything now is the media.
That’s the pipeline that’s exposing all of. this, whether it’s Ellsberg
with The Pentagon Papers, or Watergate with Bernstein and Woodward.
Somehow, when it’s public knowledge, that at least is a starting point.
And we couldn't come up with another ending.

M: Did you consider
other endings?

P: We considered
following the book, where he kills people, but that just sounded cheap
to me. There was another alternative, which was for him to somehow find
a way of discrediting the character played by Cliff Robertson, and we
toyed with that for awhile, but that didn't work out. I was always nervous
about the New York Times ending; so was Bob. We all were. But
under the circumstances, it seemed the most truthful one, albeit corny.
I mean, how would a guy get himself out of a situation like that?

The only way I know
is to write a book about it, to go on television and say, “Hey look,
these guys are after me and here’s the proof.” I mean, somehow, when
you become a large public figure, it’s hands off. It’s like the CIA wouldn't
dare to try to make a move to stop this movie. We have too high a profile.
It’s like the Russians not killing Solzhenitsyn. If he were less famous,
they'd do something to him. But notoriety is his only protection; he has
too high a profile. What would happen to world opinion if something did
happen to Solzhenitsyn.

M: I understood the
ending differently. Isn't there a strong implication that the CIA also
controls the New York Times?

P: There is. We are
saying, god help you all if we can't keep this pipeline open. What if.
That’s why he says, suppose they don't. That’s all I really meant—not that they will or they won't. There is that slight bit of doubt, and
that’s what I wanted. That’s why I froze the frame, with Redford looking
like he might be hunted—because, you know, there was a real attempt
to suppress The Pentagon Papers. We're taking all of this very
for granted now, all this freedom of the press. Oh come on, they're going
to print it, they're going to print it. Well, it’s only within a couple
of years that that’s happened. There was real government pressure to stop
the New York Times from printing The Pentagon Papers—and they might have won, very easily. I don't know how much pressure
is being brought to bear right now, on these newspapers, by CIA people.
It can't be good for the CIA—there’s a bad part to all this, too—because the CIA, I'm sure, is partially paralyzed at this moment
because of the public attention on them. And that’s not good for this
country either.

M: I disagree. I
don't have any affection or respect for the CIA—for operations like
the murder of Allende. It sounds as if, again, you—and the film—are
really in favor of having the CIA.

P: I think you have
to. In other words, I wish the world was such that you didn't have to,
but I'm not naive enough to believe that there isn't an intelligence gathering
service in every other country, and I think that being the case, we have
no choice but to have one. The fact that the CIA is corrupt I totally
agree with, but the abstract idea of having an intelligence gathering
service in a country like the United States—well, I think you
have to. I really do.

M: What script changes
were made as a result of the CIA revelations?

P: None, I promise
you. We didn't try to jump on the headlines at all. First of all, we were
too late. We started shooting the picture in October. The story began
to break in December. We were four weeks from finishing the movie. We
had shot the whole set-up, the whole plot, we were locked. We couldn't,
all of a sudden, start changing scenes; we couldn't.

M: But it was a movie
that was influenced by Watergate—it never would have been made ten years
ago.

P: No, it wouldn't.
Oh, absolutely. It had to do with Watergate, Chile—we knew about Allende,
that had happened. We knew about links between Hunt, Colson, Magruder,
those guys in the CIA. And we knew that one of the things Hunt was accused
of was leaking CIA plots to book companies, to write mystery stories.
That’s absolutely fact.

M: Of course, the
other reason why the film is approached on political terms by some people,
including myself, is because of the presence of Redford. He is a very
political liberal actor, and it is not hard to think that he was attracted
to the project because of what it had to say, politically, about the CIA.

P: That was one of
the reasons he was attracted to the project. But the basic reason, to
be honest with you, and I hate to disappoint everybody, but the real reason
he wanted to do it was because it was the kind of movie neither of us
had ever made before. It was a thriller, it was contemporary.